January 06, 2009

Picking holes

According to the Beeb, the MoD’s crack scientists have created an ultra-hard vehicle armour by putting holes in the metal.

This isn’t news to people who live near Porton Down, in Wiltshire.

The rumour round there was that DSTL (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) had built a tank out of something very similar. They’d stuck it in the middle of a field, and then called in a favour from the RAF.

They dropped a massive bomb on it.

The bomb created a huge crater in the middle of the field. And sat, slightly lopsided but otherwise untouched in the middle of the crater, was the tank.

The tank was then pushed into a warehouse and never heard of again.

I’m sure there’s a good reason why the impenetrable tank isn’t rolling around Iraq and Afghanistan right now – probably cost or weight – but hopefully now the technology (or something similar) is out in the open, it might not be so long before it’s protecting troops.